Konstantinos Karamanlis

Konstantinos Karamanlis (8 March 1907-23 April 1998) was Prime Minister of Greece from 6 October 1955 to 5 March 1958 (succeeding Alexander Papagos and preceding Konstantinos Georgakopoulos), from 17 May 1958 to 20 September 1961 (succeeding Georgakopoulos and preceding Konstantinos Dovas), from 4 November 1961 to 17 June 1963 (succeeding Dovas and preceding Panagiotis Pipinelis), and from 24 July 1974 to 10 May 1980 (succeeding Adamantios Androutsopoulos and preceding Georgios Rallis). He also served as President of Greece from 10 May 1980 to 10 March 1985 (succeeding Konstantinos Tsatsos and preceding Ioannis Alevras) and from 5 May 1990 to 10 March 1995 (succeeding Christos Sartzetakis and preceding Konstantinos Stephanopoulos).

Biography
Konstantinos Karamanlis was born in Proti, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire on 8 March 1907, and he qualified and practiced as a lawyer until entering Parliament in 1935-6 for the People's Party of Greece. He re-entered Parliament in 1946, and subsequently contributed greatly to Greek reconstruction after World War II. He joined the Greek Rally in 1951 and, after a successful period as Minister for Public Works, he succeeded Alexandros Papagos as Prime Minister. In 1955, he also founded the National Radical Union. His attempt to achieve domsetic stability through US aid and membership of the EEC failed. In 1967, the election victory of his opponent, Georgis Papandreou, precipitated the Greek colonels' coup. He went into exile in Paris, but returned in 1974 to supervise the country's transition to democracy. He founded the New Democracy party, which became the major right-wing force in Greek politics. He successfully engineered Greek membership of the EEC and, as President, was a respected elder statesman with a soothing influence in the heated atmosphere of Greek politics, especially under the premiership of Andreas Papandreou. He died in Athens in 1998 at the age of 91.